The Brother HL-1650 laser printer ($599.99 list) will complement any home office or small-business workgroup, with an impressive combination of functionality, quality, and price. Featuring speeds of up to16 ppm, monochromatic printing, an automatic duplexer, and an intuitive interface, the HL-1650 is easy to use and produces superior results.

Announced in early January, the HL-1650's 8MB of memory can be expanded to 136MB. The pullout paper tray has a capacity of 250 sheets and a front multipurpose tray that can hold another 100 sheets. Heavier stock can be inserted directly into the printer by removing the rear panel. A handy three-color LCD, located on the cover of the printer, details the printer's current status, and a four-button control panel navigates the printer's settings menu.

USB and parallel-port connectivity are supported, although cables are not included. The HL-1650 can also be upgraded to support network connectivity by adding a 10/100Base TX Ethernet print server.

The toner cartridge has a life expectancy of 6,500 pages, the drum 20,000 pages. Taking into account the replacement costs for these items as well as the price of the printer, Brother estimates the cost at 2 cents per printed page.

Attaching the printer and installing its driver was a breeze with the animated setup system. We set the printing preferences without any problems using the Quick Print setup utility, which can be placed in either the system tray or its own window. Here people can set multiple-page layouts, paper source and type, or access the Driver Properties menu to include watermarks. You can also control brightness and contrast manually for graphics reproduction.

Printing quality was uniformly good, even at the lowest 300-dpi setting. At 1,200 dpi, the printer's highest supported resolution, quality was excellent. Printing rates varied according to the combination of connection type, resolution setting, and graphics content. The HL-1650 came closest to its advertised performance when printing a text document while connected via parallel port; our tests showed a rate of 15.6 ppm. At worst, its performance was cut by a third when connected via USB and printing text and graphics at 600 dpi.

The duplexer is a fine addition to a midprice printer, erasing the concerns of the dexterity-impaired about inserting paper properly. It supports a variety of presentation options, with six alignment settings. The duplexer added about half a minute to the total printing time for a ten-page document. Users with the inclination to stand over the machine can also choose manual duplexing.

Once again, Brother introduces a superior quality printer at the right price for small workgroup environments. With its upgrade options, the HL-1650 is a wise investment for home offices and small businesses.